Peek inside the Space Coast vaccine lab working to create humanity’s moonshot

ORLANDO, Fla. — “Space vaccines” might sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but for the dozens of scientists working at a Brevard County lab, it’s just one of the many test tubes scattered throughout the building.

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The company, Vaxxinity, has occupied its ground-floor office space for just two years. Workers still remember walking into rooms filled with sticky notes, wondering why anyone would want to build a pharmaceutical company next to rocket launch pads.

Boston, they said, was the hub of the industry. By comparison, Central Florida was a biotech desert.

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Fast forward to today and to the many machines, equipment and chemicals bubbling and sloshing round as people in white lab coats carefully measure and label them. They represent possible breakthroughs to combat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, high cholesterol and muscle and bone degeneration – the project that has been given the buzzy “space vaccine” name.

“The science that we’re doing here is kind of the stuff of dreams,” Madeline Vroom told Action News Jax’s sister station WFTV, citing the high risk of a person contracting cholesterol or memory problems as they age. “To be working on therapeutics that could have such a big impact on so many people, there’s nothing better than that.”

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